Last weekend when I was home, my brother asked if I had any interest in watching any Modern Family. He’d bought the first season, and was making his way through it in his spare time. I watched a few episodes and generally enjoyed it. I had a huge problem with the show: I just wanted it to be more like Arrested Development.

I'm a monster!

Modern Family makes sense, though, from a network perspective. It has everything that made Arrested Development great (quirky, caricature-like characters, absurd yet almost-plausable plot lines, everything taken to the logical extreme), but it’s more viewer friendly. Arrested Development is wildly popular with people who have a very similar sense of humor to the show. While you may say there are dozens of us who identify, there are plenty more who think Arrested Development is nothing more than a collection of bad jokes.